Across the nation

Posted: September 21, 2012 - 12:14am

MIAMI

President Barack Obama cast Mitt Romney on Thursday as an out-of-touch challenger for the White House and an advocate of education cuts that could cause teacher strikes to spread from Chicago to other cities. The Republican countered that the U.S. economy “is bumping along the bottom” under the current administration and he predicted victory in the fall.

“When you express an attitude that half the country considers itself victims, that somehow they want to be dependent on government, my thinking is maybe you haven’t gotten around a lot,” the president said. That was in response to a question about Romney’s recent observation that 47 percent of Americans pay no income tax and believe they are victims and entitled to an array of federal benefits.

For his part, Romney was eager to move past that controversy, which has knocked him off stride. He disclosed plans for a three-day bus tour early next week through Ohio with running mate Paul Ryan and sought to return the campaign focus to the economic issues that have dominated the race all year.

BRIEFLY ...

● CHICAGO — Teenage girls may prefer the pill, the patch or even wishful thinking, but their doctors should be recommending IUDs or hormonal implants — long-lasting and more effective birth control that you don’t have to remember to use every time, the nation’s leading gynecologists group said Thursday.

● CENTENNIAL, Colo. — For the first time with short hair that’s brown instead of a wild shade of orangish-red, the suspect in Colorado’s movie theater shooting appeared in court Thursday as prosecutors gave up their fight to see a notebook he sent to a university psychiatrist, saying they didn’t want to delay proceedings.

● NEW YORK — Grainy surveillance footage released Thursday shows Lindsay Lohan’s car driving toward a man who says she hit him outside a nightclub and kept going, but the blur used to conceal witnesses’ faces partially obscures the scene.